


Equity Rules

by LinearA



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (The word is "good" he's very thirsty for praise), Actor Ben Solo, Actor/Director Relationship, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Choking Imagery, Degrading Language, Director Rey, Dirty Talk, Even with new gloves this isn't sanitary but that's the least of our worries really, F/M, Finn stands ready to file a complaint on your behalf, Glove Kink, Join the union Ben, Masturbation, Mirror Sex, No Pregnancy, Service top Ben will dom the shit out of you Rey just say the word, Sexting, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Unprotected Sex, Workplace Relationship, but like in the play within the story, who's the dom who's the sub who's to say who wants to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinearA/pseuds/LinearA
Summary: The play Rey is trying to direct is dark -- violent and sexually explicit.  Ben is a non-union actor with no resume to speak of, but she's taken a chance and cast him as the male lead.  That's not going to work if he keeps mumbling all his nastier lines to his shoes.Rey's going to have to do some intensive work to get the performance she wants from him.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 190
Kudos: 454
Collections: Pepsi and Pals' Hardcore Kinktober Challenge





	1. Ad Lib

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am completely at sea as to how to tag this beyond what I've done, so if you have anything to add, please do share.
> 
> For those not familiar, Actors Equity Association is the big stage actors' union on the East Coast. To "cheat out" means to turn to face the audience more than strictly necessary, so that they can see you better. To "go off book" means that the company knows their lines by heart. Please let me know if there are any other theater terms I've left unexplained!

“Thanks, everybody,” Rey says, trying not to sound strained. “I think we’ve had a good night. Thanks for your hard work.” There’s a general scuffle of appreciation, binders snapping shut and bound scripts being stuffed into bags. “Ben, do you think you could stay for a minute?”

She tries to keep her voice down, so it’s just a remark between them, but he still scowls. As if she isn’t doing him the _massive favor_ of giving him notes in private instead of in front of the whole cast. As everyone files out, she tries to think of how to phrase this in a way that’ll make him listen.

Finn stays put, because it’s his job to make sure she isn’t exploiting her actors. And also because Ben is the only actor they haven’t worked with before and Finn was there when he read for the part, which was a frankly alarming experience. Which is just what Rey wanted, but also probably why Finn is looking so narrowly at her new actor.

Rey looks over at Ben’s scowl, and his hunched body language, and she takes a risk. “I promise I won’t keep him overtime, Finn. You can go home.”

Finn rears back in his seat, because Rey is actor-friendly and union-friendly and she has _never_ asked her stage manager to leave. “AEA rules – ”

“I’m not Equity,” Ben says, like the union is for losers. “It’s fine. I don’t care.”

“Ben,” she says, as the door closes behind Finn. “You know I loved your audition.” Ben just looks down at his script. He’s got it bound the old-school way, with three brass brads. Rey bets if she turned it over she’d see the marks of a hammer on the back page. “I just need you to bring that – that _aggression_ to this scene. Okay? That sense of power.”

“I’ll be aggressive when the blocking’s done,” he mutters.

Rey breathes from her diaphragm. “You’re on opposite sides of an interrogation table. There is going to be a table. And you are going to be cheated out so the audience can see you both.”

“There could be movement, though.”

“Yes,” she says, still taking deep breaths. “But a lot of the scene is physically static, which is why I need you to be able to create dynamism through the language.”

“I’ll ‘create dynamism’ when I can move,” he sulks down at his script, and Rey loses it, because she has taken a chance hiring this non-Equity asshole with basically no resume on the strength of a true fucking firework of an audition and if he’s going to bring wet fucking Christmas crackers to the show itself she’s going to call Finn right now and see how soon she can fire him.

“Okay!” she cries, and drags the folding table away from him so that’s he’s cheated out. She waves at the empty space he’s mostly-facing. “Audience is there. I’ll read for Rose. And you can improvise whatever movement you want.” She drops into a chair opposite him. She knows her expression must be incredibly hostile, but that’s okay, because Rose’s character would be incredibly hostile, so it’s perfectly appropriate, and he is still the one being disgracefully unprofessional. “From ‘Don’t have to give me anything.’”

He does try. His body language shifts from an angry slouch to a relaxed, authoritative lean. “Don’t have to give me anything. You know I can take whatever I want.”

And _there’s_ what she saw at auditions. Menace that lengthens the shadows in the room. It’s not sadism that jolts her; one actor in ten could give her sadism. It’s violence, pure, barely-contained violence. Like he’s just waiting for the chance to destroy something. Her.

“Don’t have anything you want,” she reads.

And the bastard _falls completely to pieces._ His chin drops to his chest, his shoulders go up around his ears, and his voice gets high and tight. “Gottacuntdontyou,” he mutters.

Rey drops her binder with a bang. “This is not a blocking problem.” He jerks his shoulders even higher. “Ben. If you can’t say the language I can’t use you in this part. And I would prefer not to be replacing an actor at this stage. But if I _have_ to do it, I’d rather do it now than later. Can you say this?”

“Yes,” he says loudly.

“Then say it. Just say the word ‘cunt.’”

“I know the fucking word. Cunt,” he spits.

“No. Not like an epithet. Say it like you mean the thing. You do know what a cunt is, don’t you?” His lips – which, she won’t lie, were also an asset in the audition room, so perfectly, ironically soft for such a brutal character – open. No sound comes out. “Try saying it with me, okay? Cunt. Come on. Cunt.”

“Cunt,” he fumbles. His face is red. “Cunt. I fucking know!”

“Good. Now, try the line again. ‘Don’t have anything you want.’”

“Got a cunt, don’t you?” he snarls at her.

“Try it _in character.”_

He slams one massive hand down over his script and the other over his face.

“I don’t understand the trouble you’re having with these lines, Ben.”

“I just… I can’t motivate them. It’s just dirty words to shock the audience. There’s no reason.”

“What do you mean, no reason? He’s _threatening_ her.” He can’t really be this obtuse. She looks down at her script, stark text blurred by the photocopy machine.

> **Knight** Don’t have to give me anything. You know I can take whatever I want.
> 
> **Lady** Don’t have anything you want.
> 
> **Knight** Got a cunt, don’t you?
> 
> **Lady** Fuck off.
> 
> **Knight** How many of your rebel friends’ve had it?
> 
> **Lady** All of them.

“No,” she says slowly. “Sorry. I’m wrong.”

His head jerks up, black hair spilling back. He looks wary, like it might be a trick.

“It’s more complicated than that. I mean, an interrogation is a power negotiation, right?” she says. “She has information. You want it. That’s power she has over you, that she’s withholding something. So you’re trying to make her give that up, so you have all the information and all the power. And maybe your conscious intention with that line is to threaten her – you’re saying you can take her cunt. Rape her.” Ben is a statue of an actor on the other side of the table. “But you’ve also just said that you _want_ her cunt. So that’s _two_ things she has that you want. It’s an admission of weakness.”

He sucks in his breath and lets it out slowly. “But he’s not – he’s not actually saying he’s going to rape her.”

“Isn’t he?” Rey challenges him. _The Unicorn Tapestries_ is a difficult play, psychologically – a lot of oblique, violent dialogue, deliberately stripped of any historical context. Rey’s already told him he’s not getting a surcoat and a sword; she’s asked Amilyn to give them modern costumes, maybe a touch of the late 80s-early 90s when the play was written, but nothing actually retro. “It sure looks like he is to me.”

“This scene doesn’t make any sense,” he explodes. “He wants the information, but he doesn’t try to – to persuade her. Doesn’t offer her any incentive. Just jumps straight to – this!”

“The information is a MacGuffin! It doesn’t matter! The _entire play_ is about sexual power. You know why it’s called that, right?” She pulls up the picture on her phone, the last panel of the tapestry, and hands it across the table to him. “Look at that fence. The unicorn could get out any time he wants! He’s only pretending to be captive. To be powerless. It’s why they’re called ‘Knight’ and ‘Lady.’ Because the Laws of Chivalry aren’t real laws; they’re a game. The men pretend women have power through love or beauty to disguise the fact that they have power through violence. And when you get down to brass tacks… if they feel like they’re losing...”

He’s breathing hard through his nose, paging slowly through the script. “So he gets – he goes to – to sexual violence.”

“Yes.”

“But – ”

“If you are going to be squeamish about this, Ben, you are in the _wrong_ show.”

He flinches. “It’s a dark place to go, okay? Sorry I didn’t just jump right there!”

“I know it’s dark,” she says more gently. “But this play needs us to go there, and I think we can.”

He looks at her slyly and searchingly. It reminds her of the look some women give her at Pride. _Are you with us? Or are you just here to watch?_ But she said _we;_ she knows he heard her.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s, uh. Go through it.”

“Line by line.” He settles back in his chair. His lean is less relaxed. Maybe she likes that. “Don’t have to give me anything. You know I can take whatever I want.”

“Don’t have anything you want.”

“Got a cunt, don’t you?”

“Say it like you want to fuck me.”

He turns his eyes straight on her, and the hot hunger in them turns her insides liquid. “Got a cunt, don’t you?” he says huskily, and licks his lips.

“That’s right,” she whispers. “You admit it. And then you regret it. Fuck off.”

“How many of your rebel friends’ve had it?”

“Say it like you’re imagining my cunt.”

He shifts the emphasis. Makes the sentence orbit around _it._ “How many of your rebel friends’ve had it?”

“All of them. Say it like I bit you.”

“Little bitch,” he hisses through his teeth. “Think you won’t scream when I get my cock in you?”

His voice is so rough. It scrapes her ears like nails down her back. “Say it like you want to hurt me with your cock. Say it like the harder I cry, the harder you’ll come. Say it like you’re imagining it right now.”

“Think you won’t scream when I get my cock in you?”

Her mouth is dry. “Yes. Like that. Perfect.”

“Do we have to have the table?”

She blinks. He’s never made a staging suggestion before. “We can try it without.” She can always change her mind.

He shoves it towards the imagined audience and sits back in his chair. His body language is still six pounds of tension in a five-pound bag of authority. It’s good. Good tension. Like there’s something inside him trying to claw its way out. “Don’t have to give me anything,” he says, looking straight at her, and she realizes he’s left his script on the table. But he doesn’t seem bothered. “You know I can take whatever I want.”

“Don’t have anything you want,” she says, and swallows.

“Got a cunt, don’t you?” When he licks his lips she squeezes her legs together without thinking. He sees it and he uses it. Lets his eyes flicker down too slowly for it to be an accident.

“Fuck off,” she snarls.

“How many of your rebel friends’ve had it?” he asks, and she feels _naked_ without the table between them. He’s just staring at her, and his eyes feel like hands, trying to pry her open.

She loosens her legs. Maybe spreads them a little. She’s not afraid. The Lady’s pretending not to be afraid. “All of them.”

 _“Little bitch.”_ He rears back in his chair, then gets up out of it. His big hands swallow her knees as he stoops down in front of her. “You think you won’t scream when I get my cock in you?”

He says it so brutally that she twitches under his hands. He says it like his mouth is watering. His thumbs are tucked under the insides of her knees and his face is inches from hers. She can’t remember the next line.

He feeds it to her. “Do whatever… ”

“Do whatever you want. Don’t care.”

“Know what I think? I think you’re a three-minute girl. First three minutes I make you take it, you stay quiet. Bite your lip, maybe.” His fingertip almost brushes her lower lip. Not quite. “Then it starts to sink in. How it’s going to be. How long it’s going to last. That’s when you start to.” His eyes are on hers. She can’t shiver, or he’ll see it. He’ll feel it. “Squeak.”

“You don’t know anything,” she manages. He straightens up and touches the hair at the back of her head in a gentle stage hold, and she sees that his cock is pressing out against his jeans. And he may not be Equity, but she _can’t_ say anything about that; she’s his director and she can’t comment on his body unless he’s making other actors uncomfortable. It makes her uncomfortable, not least because it gives her brain permission to notice that she’s fucking soaked. Hot and dripping and pressing her thighs together as tightly as she can.

“And then we’ll choreograph Rose biting you, and there’ll be an explosion offstage,” she says, trying to sound businesslike and not strained. “Good. Good work.”

She’s not sure it is good work. Somewhere around _bite your lip_ something had changed, and she hadn’t been detached enough to know what it was or if it was right or wrong. But she’ll worry about it later. She’s kept him much too late.

He retrieves his script and puts it into his shoulder bag. “That was all right?” he asks, looking at her from under his eyebrows. He’s got the bag in front of him, covering his stiff cock.

“Yes,” she says. “We made great progress. And I’m glad you know your lines; we’re off book next week. Go home, Ben. Good work. Good night.”

He hurries away stiffly, and he can’t be gone soon enough for Rey. She locks the door behind him the instant he’s out, and throws herself down on the pile of safety mats in the corner. Before the memories fade, she unbuttons her jeans and thrusts her hand into her underwear. She’s slick under her own fingers as she rubs frantically, replaying his voice while it’s still fresh in her ears. _Get my cock in you._ Fuck. Fuck. And the way he licked his lips. _Squeak._

She comes so hard lights flicker behind her eyes.

Then she buttons her jeans, fixes her hair, and asks herself no questions.

* * *

“Excellent work,” Rey says, and watches her actors peel themselves up off the floor, panting. She beams at them. Maybe a little more than they deserve, but at this stage of the process, they can use the encouragement.

Next week is tech week, and the creative team are doing their best to go into it prepared. Poe’s gleefully played her six or seven explosions he’s created for use, depending on set acoustics, all of them so earth-shaking that she’s worried they might get sued for causing hearing damage. Finn takes a note to make sure there’s a sign outside. Jannah’s put together some sterile furniture with an unplaceable menace Rey heartily approves of, and brought it into the rehearsal space for them to use. She invites Rey to dinner, and shows her the abstract, unnerving projections she’s designing, which Finn will be able to cut live with a feed from onstage cameras. She and Lando are working together on lights.

Amilyn’s the only one who comes into the rehearsal room. There are so few props that she’s taken care of them too, and now she just comes by to re-measure Ben’s shoulders so she can alter the suit she bought him or ask Rose to try on different pairs of shoes or sternly remind Kaydel that she promised to cut her hair. Today she pokes her head through the door and asks Rey quietly, “May I…? Just want to try something I talked about with Ben.”

“Of course,” Rey says. “Do you mind waiting a couple minutes? Notes should be short.”

Amilyn settles herself in a chair, which is wise, because notes aren’t really that short – they are basically doing well, but they’re nowhere near anything Rey’s willing to let a reviewer see. She tries to look casual, giving notes, slouching back in her chair with her legs crossed under her skirt, so they don’t feel too called-out. Even if she is telling them all the things she needs them to do better. When she’s done and her cast looks suitably chastened, she dismisses all of them but Ben, and starts to pack her own bag.

(While she’s at it, she tries not to remember the last time she dismissed everyone but Ben. She still breathes harder every time they run that scene, but that’s fine, that’s the point; she wants the audience to feel implicated, doesn’t she?)

“Rey,” Amilyn calls, “do you want to give me your input here?”

There are two pairs of gloves on the table in front of Ben, and he’s working his hands into a third. Rey tries not to stare at the way his fingers stretch the seams of the burgundy leather.

“So that’s the first pair,” Amilyn says. “The other two are black. I’m afraid these might be too small… ”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ben says, and Rey tries to rein in her thoughts at the sight of him stuffing his fingers into the wrist of a glove that can’t accommodate them.

“So let’s try these.” Those fit. Barely. They’re ink-black leather with a soft finish and a strap with a silver buckle that Ben draws tight at the back of his hand.

“No cuff on either pair,” Amilyn points out. “At first I was looking for large cuffs because the idea is to add to his ‘armored’ look, and I was thinking of gauntlets, but I think I prefer this, yes? This way they won’t interfere with the line of the sleeve. And they’re unlined, so he should have the sensitivity to manipulate paper.” Rey touches the dark red pair, trying not to watch Ben rub his gloved finger and thumb together slowly. “I tend to favor the black, myself.”

“Yes,” Rey agrees, clearing her throat. “I like the ‘bloody hands’ connotation of the red leather, but I think they draw too much attention. And the fake blood might stain too visibly.”

“True. Large black pair it is.”

Amilyn holds her hands out for them, but Ben pulls his hands against his chest. “Do you mind if I keep these for the last few rehearsals before tech? As a character piece. Like you talked about.”

“Of course. Don’t lose them.”

“I won’t.” He gestures scout’s honor with three leather-clad fingers, and Amilyn sweeps up the rejected pairs with a smile. Rey turns her head and hopes she isn’t blushing.

Ben doesn’t take the gloves off when she goes, and he’s not smiling when he turns to Rey. “You like them?”

She gives a determined nod. “Yes. Amilyn’s right, they do make you look more… sinister.”

He flexes his fingers again, open and shut, and she swallows. “The thing I was talking about with Amilyn is… the more armor a person has on. The more armor they must think they need. You know?”

“Some of us need more armor than we’re allowed to wear,” she says, watching him trace a seam inside his palm.

“But you don’t wear it if you don’t think you need it. If you don’t feel unsafe.”

“You think the Knight feels unsafe?”

“I think he feels,” Ben says, and a little tremor passes through his fingers that she recognizes from his performance. “Powerless. He’s so violent.”

“He destroys _everything._ I don’t know what you mean, powerless.”

“Like you said. In chivalry, women have the power of love. Beauty. Desire.”

“That’s not what I said,” she protests. “I said men pretend they do.”

“I don’t see what’s pretend about it. He wants her to want him. But he can’t make her. He doesn’t have the power. People who feel powerful don’t need violence.”

“You think he’s justified in getting violent because – ”

“I didn’t say he was justified. He’s not. But I’m an actor.” He looks at her from under heavy lids. “It doesn’t matter to me if he’s justified. I just have to know how he feels.”

“I don’t see why you think he wants her to want him. He doesn’t care. He says he’s going to fucking _rape_ her.”

“You know why I asked you if we could get rid of the table, in the interrogation scene?”

She can still hear it clatter across the floor as he shoves it away and gives himself an unimpeded view of her. “So you could look – and move – ”

“He’s talking about her body,” Ben says and Rey swears his eyes are steadier than they should be. A little too fixed. “He wants it. He keeps talking about – taking it. If there’s a table between them, it looks like it’s blocking him. Keeping her safe. Right?”

“Right.” Her pulse is speeding up; she’s calculating and recalculating the distance between them. No reason, no real reason.

“But if it’s gone, don’t you have to wonder… why does he just talk?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not like the play is fucking _delicate._ All the bad shit happens right on stage. She cuts my eye out downstage center, for fuck’s sake. If the point was, I want to rape her – just take her body and not give a shit what she wants – why don’t I just do it?”

“You’re playing with your food – making her afraid – ”

“Making her afraid, yeah. But I don’t _do_ it. I don’t want to, because I want her to want me. I want her to like it.”

“He tells her he’s going to hurt her. He – ” She breaks off, half-gasping as Ben goes gracefully down on his knees in front of her.

“I think… I think he thinks she might like that. I’m not saying he’s right,” he says, half-ducking his head. His dark hair falls across his eyes, and one gloved hand gently encircles her bare knee. She’s frozen. The back of her neck prickles cold. “I’m just saying. That’s what he thinks.” She doesn’t move or speak. “It’s a fucked-up world. In the play. Maybe he even thinks that even if she hasn’t given me any real reason to.” His other hand encircles her other knee. She nearly falls, grabs the table for support. “Maybe I keep talking because I’m waiting for a reason to think so.” He looks up at her, and his fingers slide just a little higher. She sees him swallow. “That’s how I’ve been playing it. I thought you liked my performance?”

“Yes,” she chokes. “Yes. You’re great; you’re my actor; Equity – ”

“I’m not union,” he reminds her. “So you could fire me. If you wanted. But.” His grip on her legs gets a little tighter. “You also don’t have an understudy for me. Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to stop?” he whispers.

She swallows. It’s only her grip on the table and his grip on her that’s keeping her upright. “No.”

“Did it turn you on, the last time you kept me here? Watching me get hard for you?”

“Yes. Fuck.”

“Did you touch yourself, afterwards?” She nods. “I went and jerked off in the bathroom while I thought about fucking your mouth.”

“I locked the door.”

“Right after I left? Fingered your little cunt right then?”

He says _cunt_ so soft and slow. She nods, rolling on her feet like she’s drunk, and he sweeps one arms behind her legs. The other catches her around the back as she falls. “Don’t have to give me anything,” he tells her, as he carries her to the mats in the corner. He walks fast, on his long legs, and he doesn’t waste any time in dropping her on her back and grabbing her knees again as he crouches beside the mats. “You know I can take whatever I want.”

“Don’t have anything you want,” she gasps.

He pushes her knees apart, and her skirt falls back around her hips. “Got a cunt, don’t you?” It will never not make her wet, the way he licks his lips.

“Fuck off,” she says, trying to close her knees, wondering how much he can see.

He runs his hands up her thighs. The leather of his gloves is getting warm, from his skin and from hers, and he frames her with his fingers.

“How many of your rebel friends have had it?” He says it like he can’t imagine anything he wants more than to have it himself, and his hands press inwards to the hem of her panties. His hair tickles her legs as he bends down close. She can feel his breath.

“All of them,” she says, and he bites her at the softest part of her thigh.

“Little bitch,” he pants against her skin, and kisses the bite with a hot, open mouth. One finger slides under the gusset of her underwear, the leather rasping against her hair and sliding over her where she’s swollen and slick. He pulls the fabric aside and licks her, and she stuffs her fist into her mouth as he laps roughly, spreading her lips with his tongue and sucking at her until her hips grind.

He climbs up beside her on the mats, and she can smell his sweat before he puts his hand over her mouth and all she can smell is the clean leather of his gloves. His other hand toys with her clit, the fine seam along the edge of his finger making her writhe as he rolls it against her. “Think you won’t scream when I get my cock in you? You can barely keep from screaming now.” His finger works lower, teasing. “Rehearsal room, nice and soundproofed.” She jerks as he works his gloved finger inside, and he presses down harder over her mouth, holding her still. “Want to make you scream. Want to make you _squeak.”_

He rolls over on top of her, taking his hand off her mouth, and she gasps against his neck as he works at his belt. “Did you like my ad lib, Rey?” he murmurs. “Won’t do it in the show. Just for you. Like it?”

“Yes,” she whimpers. “Yes.” His belt buckle brushes coldly against her thigh as he works himself free.

“Want you to like it.” The tip of his cock is firm and slick, and hotter than the leather of his gloves. “Want you to love it. You want it?”

Yes. She wants him to fuck her raw with her skirt pushed up and that furious look in his eyes. He’s her actor, and he’s waiting on her word to shove his cock inside her, shaking all over with desire.

She rakes her nails up his back. “Give it to me,” she orders him, and he pushes in so hard it knocks the air out of her. He groans, his weight pressing her into the mats as his hips pump.

“Fuck,” he says hoarsely. Sweat soaks his skin, and she opens her mouth against his neck to breathe it in.

“You like that?” she asks him softly, her fingers digging hard into the meat of his shoulders. “That feel good, making me take your cock and like it?”

“Fuck yes,” he grunts. “Make you fucking love it.”

“You want me to love your cock? You want fuck me hard and make me come?” He nods, a jerk of his jaw against her head. “Then say it like you mean it, Ben.”

He grabs her hand from his shoulder and pins it to the mat, the leather tight against her skin. “You love this,” he hisses. “You fucking love this cock. Hold _still._ Hold still and take it like you want to.” She doesn’t hold still. She can feel her pulse through her clit and she squirms; he’s giving her so much she can barely breathe but she still needs more. She tries to tell him. It doesn’t come out as words.

“That’s right,” he says. “That’s right.” Beside her head, he bites the glove from his right hand, and slips his naked hand between them. “I’m going to come so hard in this tight little cunt. Use you like a dirty little toy. Now go on, Rey.” He’s rubbing her with every brutal thrust. “Squeak for me.”

She doesn’t even know if she obeys him. She comes so hard it blasts out every sense, sight and sound and smell and taste, everything but the feeling of his body forcing pleasure into hers. Maybe he says her name again. Maybe she says his. The next thing she knows for sure is that she’s lying under his whole boneless weight and the air is saturated with the smell of sex.

She huffs, and he shifts his weight off her. “How was that?” he asks her, brushing his lips slowly over hers. “Did you like my performance?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “Perfect. Perfect, Ben. I love it.” And he hums with pleasure and gathers her against his chest.

“Amilyn’s never getting these gloves back,” he murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, me sublimating all my feelings into horniness? Never. I'm on [Tumblr](https://linearla.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/linearao3) (locked sometimes) and I'm currently working on a [Reylo Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832259).


	2. Ghost Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a long time between these chapters, and yet, I have foolishly assumed context from the last one. All theater critics mentioned are real; I pray Sara Holdren doesn't have a google alert for her name.
> 
> A ghost light is essentially a high-wattage bulb on a stick, which is wheeled out and placed on the stage of a theater after everyone leaves. The practical reason for it is safety (it's also called an equity light) but superstition says that every theater is haunted by ghosts, who stage their own plays after the living have left. If you don't leave the light on for them to act by, they'll take revenge.
> 
> Another version of the superstition is simply that the ghosts are lonely. The light keeps them company.

She’s hard on him, in their last few rehearsals. Not unfair. But hard. Sometimes she phrases it gently, sometimes not, but she knows she can get something better from him. More focus, more energy, more thought, more of that menacing crackle underneath his words. 

(He should do Pinter. All his stillnesses are dangerous.)

He takes it all quietly, head down. He wears the gloves every day. “Character piece,” he says shortly to Rose, as he puts them on, and his hand makes a half circle, and squeezes. Rose shies away, nodding. Later, though, after he’s taken Rey’s notes without argument, she gives them both a narrow look.

Rey ignores it. She has one day off, and then it’s tech week, 10 out of 12s, and then it’s previews. She may have had a truly phenomenal orgasm in Ben’s arms, but he’s still her actor and this is her show.

It’s around 9:30 on the night of the day off, as she’s getting ready to go to bed, that she gets the texts.

**Ben:** I decided I should write a play.  
  
**Ben:** SCENE 1: Ben’s Apartment.   
  
**Ben:** (Rey enters.)  
  
**Ben:** REY: Ben I want you to fuck me again please  
  
**Ben:** (Ben fucks Rey and she comes very hard just like last time)  
  
**Ben:** THE END  
  
**Ben:** You can direct and star  
  
**Rey:** Are you drunk?  
  
**Ben:** Just a little  
  
**Ben:** I think my play deserves a reading don’t you?  
  
**Rey:** Seems thin.  
  
**Ben:** I can send you a picture if you forgot how thick it is  
  
**Rey:** NO  
  
**Rey:** Dropbox is glitching and it might end up in the shared design files.  
  
**Ben:** Come over and be in my play  
  
**Ben:** I can give you more lines if you want  
  
**Ben:** A monologue  
  
**Rey:** You seem more than a little drunk. You do remember tech starts tomorrow?  
  
**Ben:** REY: Ben I’m so wet for you right now. I love how hard you make me come. Please play with my tits while I take off my panties for you. Please pet my nice soft hair while I suck you like a big lollipop. Please fuck me every night so I can keep coming all over your big hard cock. Please come inside me and fill me all up.  
  


He typed that out _very_ quickly and Rey sort of wants to get a drink of her own to process all this.

**Rey:** I say please a lot in this monologue.  
  
**Ben:** Yeah I like that part  
  
**Ben:** If you don’t that’s okay we can workshop  
  
**Ben:** I can tell you everything I’m going to do to you so you don’t have to ask and ill just guess how much you like it by how hard you pant  
  
**Rey:** Fuck  
  
**Rey:** Ben, we can’t do this.  
  
**Rey:** I’m your director. It’s not appropriate.  
  


There’s a long pause. No typing bubbles, no nothing. Then a burst of messages.

**Ben:** That’s not fucking fair Rey  
  
**Ben:** It’s not fucking fair  
  
**Ben:** You can’t just use me once and then tell me to fuck off because I’m being INAPPROPRIATE  
  
**Rey:** WE ONLY HAVE A THREE WEEK RUN YOU IDIOT IM NOT TELLING YOU TO FUCK OFF IM TELLING YOU TO FUCKING WAIT  
  
**Ben:** THREE WEEKS IS A LONG FUCKING TIME REY  
  
**Ben:** AND WE STILL HAVE TO TECH  
  
**Rey:** I KNOW THATS WHY I WAS TRYING TO FUCKING SLEEP  
  
**Ben:** I’m sorry  
  
**Ben:** I’m really sorry Rey  
  
**Ben:** Can I still text you  
  
**Rey:** Only about the show.  
  


Because this is her show and the show comes first.

* * *

He doesn’t text her.

She kisses all of them three times on opening night, for luck. “Break a leg.” She’s careful not to smear their makeup. She wanted as little makeup as possible, stark faces under the harsh lighting, but Amilyn held out for something just a bit expressionist. All their mouths are a little too red and eyes lined a little too black, like they haven’t slept. Like they’ve seen horrors.

“In bocca al lupo,” Ben says, and when Rey hesitates, he adds, “it means, ‘in the mouth of the wolf.’ I learned it at school. You’re supposed to say _crepi il lupo_ back. May the wolf die.”

“Poor wolf,” Rey says, and he smiles.

“Don’t jinx me.” He’s wearing his full costume, a dark suit with no tie and the faintest hint of a shoulder pad. He looks enormous. Much too big for the dressing room chair.

“Crepi il lupo, then,” she says. “Don’t forget about your entrance at the top of two. Come in and hold. Let the audience be afraid of you.”

He ducks his head. Finn comes to the door of the dressing room, head-set on. “Half-hour,” he calls. “Break a leg, everybody.”

“Thank you, half,” the actors chorus, and Rey goes to take her seat at the back of the house.

He enters at the top of scene two, and he holds, like she told him to, a threatening silhouette in the doorway, and they are afraid of him. She can feel it.

* * *

He doesn’t text her at all.

On closing night, she stands in the wings, and after the first curtain call, the cast gestures her out on the stage with them. She takes a bow, and joins them in directing the applause to Finn in the booth. Rey picked her white dress to blend in with the set. Someone (her sister?) brings Rose flowers, and the lively green leaves and yellow petals puncture the stern color palette of the stage like a gunshot. It’s good. It’s beautiful. It’s closing night.

There’s a party, of course; they’re starting at that place around the corner where all the drinks are named after 90s songs. Some of the designers are coming; Lando’s going to try to drink them all under the table, just like opening.

She takes her phone out of airplane mode.

**Ben:** Come to the dressing room?  
  


“Decent?” she calls as she knocks.

His voice is muffled by the heavy door. “Come!”

She comes in. He’s alone at the end of the counter in the narrow room, the folding screen that divides him from the women pushed back. He’s wiping off his makeup. And he’s a liar.

“You said you were decent,” she reproves him, turning her head. Because she isn’t thinking, she turns it to the mirror; he’s just as shirtless there as he was in reality, and she sees her own blush, too. She does a full turn, faces the door that’s fallen closed behind her. It’s got press clippings taped to it.

“Sorry,” he says. Does he sound sorry? She can hear him rustling into something. When she looks at the mirror again he’s buttoning up his costume shirt, which is streaked with dark gouts of stage blood. It ought to be in a bucket of suds, soaking the stain out so he can wear it again tomorrow night. But there’s no show tomorrow night.

“Happy closing,” she says. “I got your text.”

“Just now?”

She checks her phone again. “When did you send it?”

He doesn’t do a particularly thorough buttoning job. “I dunno. Hours ago.”

“Sorry. I guess the reception was bad on the train.”

“Must be, yeah. You want some?” He picks up a basket from the floor and slides it across the counter towards her. It doesn’t slide very far; she has to come closer to look. There’s a little wooden box of mice made out of chocolate, and a bottle of champagne, and an envelope that says _Ben Solo._ The top of the envelope has been ripped open, but she doesn’t see the card.

“Thanks,” she says, and takes a chocolate mouse. He watches her eat for a second. If he asked her to come here, he must want something. And she came. “Did you put that up?” she asks, gesturing at the clipping taped to the back of the door. The chocolate mouse is sweet but not very sweet, so she knows it’s expensive. It tastes thickly of cocoa but she licks her lips and tastes cinnamon and wine, too.

“No. Rose.” He leans towards her, reaching out, but it’s only for the champagne bottle. She wonders who sent it. Maybe he got an agent out of this; maybe someone big. Maybe they saw the reviews. 

She glances back at the one on the back of the door. It’s torn out of a hard copy of _New York._ Rey doesn’t know where you even find a hard copy of _New York_ except in a therapist’s waiting room. She keeps looking at the clipping. In the mirror, Ben Solo, big and blood-stained, strips the foil from the bottle in quick, rough tears.

> **Downtown, a Bleak, Piercing _Unicorn_**  
>  _Sara Holdren_
> 
> _Nora Ephron’s movie_ When Harry Met Sally _famously asks, “Can men and women ever be friends?” Rebecca Hearst’s_ The Unicorn Tapestries, _currently running in an icy, electrifying revival, asks, “Can men and women ever be anything but enemies?” The complicated (and frequently graphically violent) answers it provides paint a blistering portrait of a society in which sex and violence crack individual psyches like thistles tearing through concrete..._

It’s one of her favorite reviews. Even if it says her transitions are too slow and it’s kind of hard on Rose. She frowns. “Rose put it up?”

The cork pops like a gunshot in the confined space. “It’s the only one that says anything about the direction.” She waits for the champagne to foam up and spill over his fingers, but it doesn’t. She can hear it hiss and fizz.

Rey makes a dismissive gesture. “It’s a revival. Any review is a review of the direction.”

“The guy in TM just hated the play.”

“The guy in TM unironically called it ‘in-yer-face’ theater and said it was ‘man-hating.’ I don’t give a fuck what he thinks.”

“But you do give a fuck what the other ones think?” He puts bottle sits on the counter between them, and the neck smokes like a gun barrel. 

“I mean I know I shouldn’t. And obviously the audience is who really matters.”

“But you do care.”

“Don’t you?” She challenges him, and inclines her head at the door. “She liked you.”

(The review calls him _menacing_ and _ferocious._ It says _Solo’s Knight is an unstoppable force, out of all control, even his own. He’s unable to escape the patterns of violence he creates even as the Lady turns them against him, and Solo roars like a furnace in constant danger of explosion.)_

He doesn’t reply at first, just pushes the bottle further down the counter towards her. There aren’t any glasses.

(She could have walked in and put her hands against that naked chest and kissed him. He smells like sweat and sticky-sweet stage blood. But she told him to wait and then she told him to put on a shirt. Like she doesn’t want this. Like she hasn’t gotten herself off thinking of him every day for weeks.)

She clenches her shaking fingers around the neck of the bottle and takes a swig. It buzzes in her mouth and down her throat. She wipes her lips on the inside of her elbow, and the armhole of her tight white dress bites into her shoulder a little. 

He’s looking at her. She had two hundred pairs of eyes on her at curtain call less than half an hour ago; now one pair feels like too much, just because that pair is dark and urgent and close enough to see the way she’s shaking and the way she’s sweating and the way she’s holding the neck of the bottle, with her thumb absently rubbing at the glass.

But it’s not like he’s not soaked in sweat. Maybe it’s all still from the show; God knows he’s works hard for his applause. But he keeps swallowing, hard. There’s agitation in the way he arranges and rearranges his feet, like nothing is comfortable, nothing is right.

“Sorry I didn’t get your text earlier,” she says. She meets his eyes and holds them, taking another drink, trying not to be a coward. “Did you want something… time-sensitive?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

“Is it too late, now?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Oh.” She puts the bottle down; it hits the counter with a cold thunk. “Oh. I’m sorry. Should I – do you want to go out – ”

“No,” he says. “I just wanted something I can’t get now.”

“What?”

“My director.”

“Oh,” she says. But he’s still looking at her. He doesn’t want to go out. “Why? Were you mad at her? Ready to tell her off for being such a vicious, man-hating little bitch?”

She says it lightly. He doesn’t smile. His jaw’s so tight. Maybe he actually is angry with her. Why? Because she missed his text? “Why’d you want to do this play?” he asks. 

She starts to give the spiel she gave the company at her first meeting. “I think it’s very contemporary, really, and – ”

“Not why the company chose it. Or chose you for it; whatever.” He doesn’t blink often, and when he does, it’s a little bit slow. Like a cat. But if he’s a cat, he’s on a hot tin roof. “Why _you wanted to do it.”_

She lifts the bottle to her lips again. “I want to give other people my problems,” she says. 

It’s not her answer; she read it in a book once and liked it. She liked how clever and cruel it sounded. How it makes her feel ruthless to say it, as if she could leave everything that keeps her up at night in someone else’s lap and walk away.

“Yeah? What are your problems?”

She should have just kissed him; why did she feel like she had to hide her face? What is fucking wrong with her? She gestures out towards the stage. The champagne swirls in the bottle, and she hears, faintly, the rumble of the house staff rolling out the ghost light. “Patriarchy?”

His eyebrows are too square to really arch, but he alters the angle on one. “You don’t think the audience had that one already?”

He hasn’t taken his eyes off her; not once. Maybe he wants to know what’s wrong with her too. Maybe that’s why he seems like he’s going to break something, because instead of being normal she’s being like this. 

She feels like she might shatter the bottle, with how hard she grips it, and when she puts it to her mouth it clinks against her teeth. “I know they have my problems. But they don’t – I want them to – _feel_ about them like I do.” 

It comes out a snarl. And the cruelty feels pathetic, instead of ruthless. Why does she need the audience to hurt, to feel implicated and guilty and trapped, just because she does? Why can’t she just be soft with people? 

She puts the champagne down. If she weren’t such a starving, flea-bitten animal, she’d do community-constructed pieces satirizing white privilege, queer remixes of _Twelfth Night_ , quirky musicals about polyamory and Twitter. Not a thirty-year-old drama with a budget line for stage blood and a script that’s built to leave scars.

“But that’s just catharsis, isn’t it?” she adds, resignedly. “The old Aristotle shit. Give them a little dose of the nasty thing, and let them survive it, like a vaccine. They only have to feel like that _while they’re in here._ Then the lights come up and we all leave.”

His fist jerks up in the air. In the last millisecond before it can crash back down on the counter, he stops it, and drops it quietly down, finger by finger. The strain shows in his throat and up the line of his arm where it disappears into his unbuttoned cuff. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe.”

He reaches for the bottle and takes a long drink. She pretends not to watch his throat work as he swallows.

“I hate closings,” he says. “I hate when shows are over.”

“I hate it too.” All that work. All that passion. All gone. And the people go too. “But at least we gave them a show to remember,” she says. Because that’s what she always says to herself. “And you can be proud of your work.”

He colors from his ears to the nape of his neck. But his voice is tinged with bitterness. “Oh yeah. Real proud.”

“What do you mean? All the critics loved you.”

On the counter, one hand toys with the black leather gloves. “Feldman said I was the archetypal rapist. The Voice said I was brutal and abusive. Vincentelli said in the Times I was the psychopathic incarnation of male violence.”

There’s a mixed-up, hurting sound to his voice, like he doesn’t know what he thinks or what he’s feeling. Like he’s feeling too many things at once. “Those were good reviews,” she says. “They said the Knight was those things. They said _you_ were _powerful_ and _affecting_.”

His blush deepens as she recites the words. His lips are so red she’d think he was still wearing makeup if she hadn’t been through five weeks of rehearsal with him. She could have walked in here and begun with a kiss. 

But if she were a person who could begin like that, she would have directed a different play.

“The run’s over,” he says. He’s not looking at her anymore. He’s looking at the gloves, at the ground, at anything else, like he _can’t_ look at her anymore. “So the Knight’s gone. I don’t have to be him anymore. I don’t have to do what you tell me to do.”

“No,” she agrees.

“Did you think I was _powerful_ and _affecting?_ Did you think I was good?”

“Yes,” she says, staring at his bent neck. “Yes. You were… very good.” _Great,_ she ought to say. _Fantastic. Tremendous. Beautiful._ “You had the audience in the palm of your hand.” 

He turns dark red, and fixes his eyes on the floor. “But there’s no audience anymore, is there?”

“No,” she says, and for a moment the despair in his voice infects hers, too. All her thought and her sweat and her tears, and no one will ever see it again. “They’ll remember,” she insists. Ferocious with him and with herself, because they both have to believe it. “They’ll remember.”

“Will you?” he demands. “Next month, when you’re directing an opera about refugees or whatever, will you remember – us?”

“Of course I will!”

“Yeah, as what, an item on your resume?”

“What about you?” she challenges. “You got the best reviews; everybody talked about _you;_ are you going to pretend your not getting good work out of this? Is this somehow going to be something more important to you than whatever Netflix show you’re on?”

“I don’t think the Netflix director is going to make me act out a rape fantasy after hours!”

 _Make._

“I didn’t _make_ you – ” Except maybe she did; she’s his director; she told Finn to go; he’s not even union. And before he said she _used_ him. She swallows hard and stands up. She can’t think about this with his eyes on her; the shame is too much; she’ll go to Finn and tell him everything and he’ll tell her what she has to do, how to make up for it – 

He grabs her by the arm. “No, Rey; wait; I’m sorry, Rey; I didn’t mean it like that!”

She stops. He doesn’t let go. His hand is hot and damp on her arm, both of them sweating as if they were under the lights.

“You didn’t make me,” he says softly. “You didn’t make me touch you. I just… liked thinking that you did. That’s why I wanted my director, before the show.” He pulls her a little closer to him. His grip is tight but the action is gentle. “So I could say… I’m only a monster because my director told me to be one.”

“The Knight is the monster,” she says, automatically. “Not you.”

“The Knight only exists on stage. In front of the audience.” He pulls her against him now, in front of him, both of them facing the dressing room mirror. He holds her body with his arms and her eyes with his and she can feel his shaking breath against her back as he reaches for the gloves again. She swallows. “Do you want to be my audience, Rey?” he whispers, and fills his palms with her breasts. “Watch me. Tell me what you see.”

She turns her head away. It puts her cheek against his shoulder. “I can’t see. I’m in the way.”

“That’s not you. See?” He points into the mirror, and his voice sinks down low. “That’s not me. That’s someone who gets off on breaking women. Isn’t it? Isn’t that what you asked for from your actor?”

It is and it isn’t and nobody knows that better than him. She keeps her head turned away.

“So look,” he says. “Look at the little stage picture here and tell me what you see.”

She swallows, and looks. He’s so big, and there’s blood all over him. She knows that in the play it’s mostly his; she knows from watching Finn make it that it’s mostly corn syrup. But in the mirror, he’s a bloodstained monster with his black-gloved, bloody hands on her neck.

“A man touching a woman,” she says. She sounds distant. Hypnotized.

Scared. She sounds scared. He holds still. Then she presses back against him, and he gives a little sigh, so small she can’t even see his chest move in the mirror. 

One of his hands slips up her side and finds the zipper on her dress. “What’s he doing?” he asks. His fingers toy with the zipper pull.

“He’s… trying to play with her. Scare her.”

“Yeah? Do you think he’ll take that dress off her?” His other hand slides over her hip and plucks at the hem. “That tight, white dress that makes her look like a virgin? Think he’ll tear it off her?”

“Yes.” The zipper splits, and he drags at the fabric. She’s blinded, briefly, bundled in her dress like being thrown in a sack, and then she can see again and gloved hands are jerking at the clasp of her bra.

She remembers his texts. _Please play with my tits as I take my panties off for you._ But she’s not going to take anything off for him.

His chest is hot against her back. “She looks really helpless now, doesn’t she? That woman he’s got. She doesn’t look like she can fire him. Or tell him what to do. She doesn’t even look like she can give him notes.” He pushes down her panties, and beneath the counter, where the mirror can’t see, she shifts her legs and steps out of them. His hand rubs the curve of her ass. “How’s that look to the audience?”

If she looked at herself in the mirror, she’d see her nipples hard and tight and her chest heaving. If she looked at his face, she’d see him watching her. She watches the action, instead, the gloved hands grasping the bare skin. “She’s nobody to him,” she whispers. “He’s not pretending he cares what she wants.” If she looked at his face, she’d see the little hesitation, the slip of the mask. She doesn’t look. “He just wants to get what he wants. Just wants to take it.”

She’s still trembling a little, but his shudder shakes her whole body. She feels his stance change behind her. His weight is shifted, grounded and powerful. “You know I can take whatever I want.”

She starts to struggle, pushing at his arm. “Don’t have anything you want.”

The big fingers of his right hand make a black V between her legs, petting and spreading, and in the mirror his tongue darts over his lips as he looks. “Got a cunt, don’t you?”

“Fuck off,” she spits, and then the other hand’s fingers are at her mouth. Her lips open and she gags at the dirty-sweet leather and how deep they thrust. 

“How many of your rebel friends have had it?” he asks, both hands pushing into her like she’s a toy, sneering at her in the mirror as she squirms. She slams her jaw shut on his fingers, biting down as hard as she can, and he hisses and thrashes inside the glove.

“All of them,” she rasps contemptuously, as he tears his fingers free, and she watches his face, contorted in the mirror. She can’t kiss him, but she can do this, crack her whip at him like a circus tamer at a lion until he roars the way she wants and eats her like she wants him to. She wants to lash him and lash him until he eats her all up.

 _“Little bitch.”_ His hand clamps around her throat. His hand flexes; she can see the tendons strain under the glove. His fingers clench. But they clench around the hard bones of her jaw. There’s no pressure on her windpipe. In the mirror, he’s choking her. She gasps. “Look at me, Rey.” She looks; his reflected face is inhuman, eyes hot and wild. “Think you won’t scream when I get my cock in you?”

The Lady has a line. The Lady would say it, even if she were choking. Rey whispers it hoarsely, eyes locked on his. “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

“Don’t care.” He puts his other hand between her legs again. “You want to know that I don’t care what she wants; I only care what I want, and what I want is this.” He rubs her, sliding on how wet she is, and licks his lips. “Want your cunt. Gonna get what I want, aren’t I?” She whimpers, high and wordless, as he rides her clit with a rough finger. They both watch her, in the mirror, held by the throat and stroked between the legs. “Want to hear those little squeaks again,” he murmurs. “Would you give me that, Rey?”

She bites her lip against – any sound. Any sound she might make.

“Of course you wouldn’t. You know what I want and you don’t want to give me anything. Just make me want it and tell me no.”

“Tease,” she whispers.

 _“Tease,”_ he says. Like he’s just remembered his line. Like he’s angry he forgot. He drops his grip from her jaw to her tit and squeezes, hard, pulling her back against him. “Fucking cocktease. I can make you take it.”

His other hand leaves her cunt. She can feel it brush against her as he opens his pants. “Fuck.” She can see his open, gasping mouth in the mirror. “Look at that fucking monster. Doesn’t care if it hurts her.” 

He starts to take his other hand off her, too, to work on his pants, but she can’t let that happen. He can’t just leave her here alone in front of the mirror. She clamps her hand over his. Twists her body so it looks like she’s fighting him. She won’t let him let go of her.

“He likes it,” she grits out. “Likes how his big cock hurts her.”

 _“Fuck,”_ he groans, and throws himself around her, tight and hot and crushing as he holds her. She can feel his cock twitch, messy with sweat and precome. “Fuck. Rey.” She staggers under his weight, and he straightens up and yanks her backwards before she can hit the counter. She grunts and grinds her hips backwards; he’s late. She needs it _now,_ her dirty, vicious fuck, and he’s late for his cue.

He makes up for it with how hard he pushes into her. She has to slap her hands on the counter to keep her balance, hauled up onto her toes to take it. It does hurt, exactly the way she wanted it to, like an itch scratched, the way he splits her open. She moans, and her face is so close, in the mirror. She’s red and sweaty, flyaways plastered to her forehead and neck. He’s an even darker red, face twisted as he holds her waist and rams himself into her.

“Fucking look at you,” he growls. “Don’t want to ask me nicely. Wanna tell me no and have me do it anyway. Like I’m a spoiled fucking bully.” He claws her body upright, close to his, and for a second his open mouth is hot against her neck. “That what you fucking want?”

In the mirror, her body is straining and struggling on his cock. But it isn’t quite right; the balance of the picture is off; his hands are too low. She takes one and drags it back to her throat, dropping her chin back in the safe cleft of his grip, and then twists her head, makes him fight to keep hold of her as she thrashes and squirms.

“You want me to be mean to you?” he demands, pressing her against the counter with his weight. “Because you think everything else is a lie?” Her back is pressed against his chest; she can feel the thick muscles of his core flex and clench, and her bones feel like an amplifier for his voice. When he talks, it throbs through her like a second heartbeat. “Could tell you this is fun. Letting you squirm. You’re not my director; you’re nobody; hot, tight, little fuckdolls aren’t people. They don’t get to tell me what to do. Can’t say no when I want to use them. Fuck, that cunt feels good. Good for me. Is that what you want to see?”

The cuff buttons of his shirt are undone, and she sinks her fingers, nail first, into the bare flesh of his forearm. He shouts and shudders, dark lashes fluttering in the mirror as his eyes roll back and she clings on, and uses his arm as an anchor to push herself harder, up and down on his cock. _“Fuck,”_ he spits. His teeth are clenched. “You gonna come? I’m a sick fucking monster who hurts your little cunt and it makes you fucking come.”

It does. The picture in the mirror scalds her, the woman choked and still clawing, his cock ramming into her pitilessly. She sees herself jerk in his clutches, and then he grips her harder. Her thighs shake, and she squeals as she bursts like bitten fruit, messy and wet.

He’s still fucking her, his hold shifting desperately, gloves slippery with her sweat. “Before I. Oh fuck. _Fuck._ Rey. Give me what I fucking want.”

She catches her half-limp body against the mirror. _“Please,_ Ben,” she gasps, and she feels him shake. The glass is hard and cool against her palms and cheek. In the mirror his jaw clenches. He groans, pumping frantically. His soft red mouth falls open, and he presses his face into her hair as he gives another last deep push inside her.

He stays like that for a long minute, pressing her against the mirror until it turns warm and damp with body heat.

The theater outside is dark and empty. Only the ghost light will see them out. Down the street, Poe will be three drinks deep by now. Rose making eyes at Finn. Jannah and Kaydel holding hands.

Is she going to hold Ben’s hand?

His breathing has slowed to something normal. She’s too close to the mirror to see her own face as he picks himself up. He doesn’t turn away from her, but he doesn’t touch her, either. She wants him to – she doesn’t know what she wants him to do. Zip up her dress? He’s not her dresser. 

“I need to change my clothes,” he says, clearing his throat. His fingers pick at the edge of his gloves.

“Oh,” she says dumbly. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No. No. Just. I don’t know. You told me to put my shirt back on. Before. I don’t know how you feel about – ”

“No,” she says. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He takes off the gloves and peels off the soaking shirt.. His body underneath is beautiful. She should have just touched him. What’s wrong with her?

It doesn’t matter. Show’s over. Time to leave.

She reaches down for her underwear. There’s a card on the ground.

_Dear Ben – I hope you know how sorry I am that I couldn’t make it. I’m sure you were stupendous. All my love. Mom._

She pulls on her dress. He’d offered her the champagne, the chocolate. He hadn’t touched them before she came in.

He’s wearing jeans, and a green wool shirt, and there he is. An actor. But not her actor anymore.

He takes a breath. “So you know.” He swallows, and she braces herself. “I’ve fucking never come harder than I do when I’m with you. But I can’t do this every time.” He looks down at his bag, not at her. “I’m sorry. I need. I need other things. Okay?” He presses his chair all the way under the counter with his foot. “I need you to kiss me, okay? Text me. Shit like that. I need you to come to the shitty fucking readings I’m in in Bushwick and tell me you liked me. I need your legs around my neck. I need you to be the one who does all the work sometimes. I’m sorry.”

“You think I wouldn’t be good at that?” Because she couldn’t just come fuck him like a normal person. She had to sit here and make him do weird charades. It’s such hard work, to pretend not to be themselves. But isn’t he right? Won’t it be so much harder not to pretend?

He falters. “I just. I didn’t know if you’d want to. I can’t – I can tell when you like something. I can’t tell what you’re thinking or feeling. When you say things like – like when you said, he’s not. Not pretending I care what you want. I don’t know if that’s really what you think about me. And I can’t do this every time.”

His fists are clenched. She sits on the counter and clutches her knees up to her chest. It’s not modest, in a dress, but she was naked five minutes ago. And now she’s wet and messy with him, and everything is wrong with her, but she has to try to pretend it’s not. “During rehearsal. Actors do what I say. During the run. The audience feels what I want them to feel. And then it’s over. And everyone leaves. And no one cares what I want anymore.”

“I do.”

She wants to believe him. She wants to believe him so badly. 

“I don’t want it like that every time. And I really don’t think that. About you. That you don’t care what I want. But it’s… hard sometimes. Complicated.” So many layers of pretending. Pretending to know when other people aren’t pretending. Pretending not to want to pretend. Pretending to be a person, real and whole and sane, and not a desperate collection of fragments of loneliness and rage. 

It’s all smoke and mirrors. Theater’s just the most honest kind.

“Complicated,” he repeats. His fists unclench a little.

“Do you want to go to the party?” she asks him. _And hold my hand?_ she doesn’t ask.

“Only if you want to.”

She ought to. It’s closing night. She tucks her chin between her knees. “I’m always sad. After a show.”

“Me too. Does the party help?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes it’s just drinking.” There’s a faint little red smear on her white dress. Karo and Hershey’s and red food coloring. “Everything’s over,” she says. Her nose starts to run. “Everything’s lost. We worked so hard, and no one will remember.”

“Rey. Don’t cry.” He’s propped on the counter next to her, thumbing at her tears. His bare hands are gentle.

“I know theater’s _ephemeral,_ ” she sniffles. “I _know_ that’s… the name of the game, and that’s why it feels so special and dangerous and magic.” You can only pretend for so long. “I just – I go to the party and I’m sad, or I go home and I’m sad, and either way it feels like I’m the only one who’s sad. The only one who’s going to miss it. And maybe you won’t miss it because you hated it – ”

“I did not hate it, Rey. Not at all. It wasn’t _fun_ ; _fun_ isn’t the word. But I didn’t hate it. And I’ll miss it too. And I’ll always remember it.” His warm, gentle hand rests on her arm. And maybe he’s one of those actors who can cry on cue. But the tears in his eyes seem like they belong to him. “You’re not the only one. You’re not alone.”

She laces her fingers through his.

As they walk out, footsteps echoing in the dark space, she stops. “Wait.”

He stops. His pale face catches the light of the single bare bulb. “Is it bad luck,” she asks him, “to kiss in front of the ghosts?”

He shakes his head. “They’re working on their own shows. They’ll never notice us.” His pretty hair is messy with drying sweat, and he must be so tired. But he smiles as she slides her hands into his hair and pulls him down to kiss his mouth.

“Will you come with me to the party?” she asks when she lets him go. “Just for one drink.”

He nods. He could be a ghost himself, in this light. So could she.

“One drink,” she says. “For the people who watched. Even if they don’t remember us.”


End file.
